Richard. wrote:1) An old person looking at a distracted teenager is a straw man? Nope.2) He behaves how some people would, and in a common way. "Average person" is a pretty harsh generalization.3) I sensed absolutely no condescension. And patronizing? ('Treat with an apparent kindness that betrays a feeling of superiority') That's not even applicable.4) The character happened to be female. In no way did she save the day.

That's a bizarre way to interpret what I said. Item 4, specifically, sounds like it was said by Cleverbot.

Having become a Wizard on n.p. 2183, the Yellow Piggy retroactively appointed his honorable self a Temporal Wizardly Piggy on n.p.1488, not to be effective until n.p. 2183, thereby avoiding a partial temporal paradox. Since he couldn't afford two philosophical PhDs to rule on the title.

Most astute observation yet. Back to the Future, released in 1985, has a sub-plot about Marty's (of the MTV generation) kids behavior (in the not-so-far-off 2015). Never mind that most of 2015-world is playful conjecture based on late 1980s feelings about the world, you still have the same idea of hip kids living in the moment while their parents look on, bemused by all the "new" technology they didn't have growing up.

Lazar wrote:As a Millennial, Iet me take this opportunity to say that I dislike those John Hughes high school movies. Ferris Bueller is a jerk, and The Breakfast Club is a muddle of stereotypes that ends up endorsing the very conformity it pretends to reject.

Ferris was popular while also being nice to everyone. What makes him a jerk?

You misunderstood the point of The Breakfast Club. The point was that every problem that every kid has is the fault of their rotten parents no matter how good they are at fulfilling their stereotypes.

SamSam wrote:"Your problem with the MTV generation is they're kids?" No. They are not kids. That's what the strip is establishing. Instead, WHG's problem with the MTV generation is the kids that they produced, who have no attention span.

I may be too old for this, but it's not just MTV. It's MTV style editing applied to everything. While I still had the patience to watch TV, I noticed that not one cut in a hundred, in any advertisement, lasts longer than a second. Including those where they are showing you a sample of what you should by - for example, movie trailers or the whole travel channel*. The actual speed, by my rough timing, is around 70 cuts a minute. What do you get? An illusion that you've been shown something, while you actually saw nothing.

Also, the ad time is longer and longer. Star Trek TOS took 50 minutes per episode; the latest crop takes 40. They both filled one hour slots. If you still try to watch anything, including news - how can you keep your attention at all, if your concentration (even if it's no more than 1 ppm) is interrupted every few minutes?

----* exception on travel channel is that they have endless time to show their host pouring hot air in the general direction of the microphone; it's when they actually start showing you what (s)he was talking about, that the speed cuts begin.

Being named Marty caused this post to baffle me for a couple of minutes. "I don't have kids," and, "Who is this person?" were common thoughts.

I feel like someone should point out that as far as jokes go this one doesn't work when spoken, or alternatively has a double meaning when spoken. The listener would have no way to distinguish between a spoken "their" and "they're." I'm overly fond of this particular nuance of language, my favorite example being the sentence "There are three 2s in the English language." Spoken aloud nobody will question it, but the sentence is impossible to reproduce in written form.

SirMustapha wrote:Randall creates a strawman, who behaves pretty much nothing like an average person would, and uses it to deliver a condescending and patronising joke -- and the character who "saves the day" is female. Why am I not surprised?

Alternate post:Lawl, the guy's so old he's even wearing a hat.

For someone who spends 3 days a week psychoanalyzing a webcomic creator and presupposing his intentions, it's interesting that you criticize his use of a strawman argument.

But the comic wasn't long. It was the perfect size, actually. Saying "tl;dr:" implies that the content in question was too lengthy for you to read. It doesn't mean "summary", and even if it didn't, your summary wasn't very apt. Randall main goal wasn't to make a point. It was to make a joke.

xkcdfan wrote:Obligatory "MTV doesn't even show music videos anymore" comment.

You wouldn't have known this, but that video isn't available in the US.

Lazar wrote:As a Millennial, Iet me take this opportunity to say that I dislike those John Hughes high school movies. Ferris Bueller is a jerk, and The Breakfast Club is a muddle of stereotypes that ends up endorsing the very conformity it pretends to reject.

I love you Lazar. John Hughes movies pretty much just relied on old, dusty, and--in my opinion--harmful tropes. Like spreading the meme that every bully comes from a shitty homelife (therefore, his actions are excusable!), every jock is an asshole, with a father that presses too hard, every "nerd" suffers from depression, etc. It tries to portray itself as subverting tropes, when all it does is perpetuate stereotypes already firmly in everyone's head.

SirMustapha wrote:Randall creates a strawman, who behaves pretty much nothing like an average person would, and uses it to deliver a condescending and patronising joke -- and the character who "saves the day" is female. Why am I not surprised?

Alternate post:Lawl, the guy's so old he's even wearing a hat.

You are aware that the comic's primary goal wasn't to make a point (i.e. an *argument*) but was trying to make a joke, right? There is no strawman, because there is no argument. It isn't a "take-that". The point of the strip is to blow people's minds, basically. It's the same point as in this comic: http://xkcd.com/891/

The idea that the MTV generation doesn't refer to now-adays teens but instead refers to 40-somethings makes people feel old.Also, a woman outwits a man in a comic strip?! CLEARLY this is sexism. But wait, how do you know that's a woman? Just because the character has long hair? Clearly YOURE a sexist too, for assuming that men can't have long hair!

General_Norris: Taking pride in your nation is taking pride in the division of humanity.Pirate.Bondage: Let's get married. Right now.

I'm not sure if this is sad or not, but I'm only 31 and I consider myself part of the mtv generation. I also consider myself part of Gen X. I just have always identified more with the slightly older crowd then the slightly younger. I guess it could be part and parcel with being the youngest child. I spent more time tagging along with my older siblings than I did with friends the same age or younger than me.

unus vox wrote:For someone who spends 3 days a week psychoanalyzing a webcomic creator and presupposing his intentions, it's interesting that you criticize his use of a strawman argument.

I see your point, but you have to admit that there's a bit difference between making possibly strawman-ish comments on one webcomic writer and making heavily strawman-ish on a whole class of people that potentially encompasses thousands of people -- audiophiles, anthropologists, old people, you name it.

sje46 wrote:You are aware that the comic's primary goal wasn't to make a point (i.e. an *argument*) but was trying to make a joke, right? There is no strawman, because there is no argument.

It's very conveniently naïve to play down the importance of a "joke" like that, especially Randall's jokes, that very often blur the line between "joke" and "personal observation".

sje46 wrote:Also, a woman outwits a man in a comic strip?! CLEARLY this is sexism. But wait, how do you know that's a woman? Just because the character has long hair?

Don't be a smart-ass. Take a look at the "Everything" comic thread, in which some of the very hardcore xkcd fans have clearly said that, in xkcd, that kind of long hair is what distinguishes women. As far as I recall, the only male Randall has depicted with long hair was Richard Stallman. And I wasn't commenting on "sexism", but on Randall's rampant White Knight syndrome.

SirMustapha wrote: And I wasn't commenting on "sexism", but on Randall's rampant White Knight syndrome.

Yeah these comics would be a lot better if week after week, day after day, Randall just criticized the same person in what is essentially the same way every time. I think the use of different words to say the same thing "I don't like this!" would be really interesting. Or maybe for an entire week he could just draw a picture of the subject and caption it "I don't like this!" I would certainly enjoy the refreshing new direction of the same thing all the time.

First off, I think you like to argue. There's nothing wrong with that, I like to argue too, but I think in particular you really get a kick out of people (trying to) rip your comments apart just so you can (try to) tear into theirs.

Second, I don't think you understand how comedy works.

There are many different styles of comedy, but the vast majority center around taking something ordinary and familiar (be it a stereotype, a common situation, a trope, whathaveyou) and flipping it on its head in the punchline. Randal's comedy tends toward stereotypes and tropes - particularly those relating to geek culture. As such, most of the "straw men" you are offended about are really just common stereotypes that Randall is lancing with his humor.

The whole "That's the problem with the MTV Generation - no attention span" trope is a trope because it is so damn common. I still hear that nonsense, even though - as was pointed out in the comics - the MTV Generation are well on their way to becoming old fuddy-duddies.

A more generalized version is "kids these days, blah blah blah" - implying that kids these days are somehow different than the speaker's generation when they were kids. Chances are, the only differences in reality are the specifics.

The joke in the comic occurs when Randall points out that, in fact, kids have always lacked attention (by noting that these are the kids of the kids who had no attention span, and to WHG they seem identical to the MTV generation). This is usually true of any "kids these days" comment. Kids are kids, they are not mature yet, so they do dumb things and often don't have their priorities figured out. That's what "kid" implies - immaturity. And that's the joke.

Also, a note about advertisement times shrinking: advertising is about money. Advertisers don't care about a style that will be more effective in 20 years because it will allow them to show more advertisements per show, advertisers care about making money right now. If shorter advertisements are more effective, advertisers will use shorter advertisements. Given this, it seems to me that it is slightly more likely that people's short attention spans are responsible for the shorter advertisements than the other way around. I'm not sure how much it has been studied, if at all, but I've never heard of any empirical evidence that suggests shorter advertisements reduce attention spans. Direct counter-evidence for this idea is the fact that the average length of a feature film has been incredibly stable since the 60's, and are in fact slightly longer today than they have ever been (but only by a handful of minutes). Also, infomercials (half hour to an hour long advertisements) only became common place after the mid-90's, and today are found on almost every channel after a certain time. If I were to form a hypothesis, I'd say that advertisements may be shorter because advertisers have homed in on the ideal interruption which both maximizes ad revenue while minimizing consumer annoyance. But I could be wrong.

MichaelKarnerfors wrote:To those that say MTV never showed videos.... suck it up:...A modern variant of it...[Nerd rendition of Money for Nothing]

I can't believe nobody else got a kick out of this but me. Bravo to you if you wrote it, or if not, to whoever did.

sje46 wrote:Thanks for the helpful criticism, friend.

Sje - it does appear to be the case that you misinterpreted at least two of the comments you replied to (I don't see any others, so I doubt it's a "record" anyway). Maybe I can be more "helpful".

1.) Regarding the comment made by "GregSucks", I believe he was referring to himself as a member of generation made up of the kids of the MTV generation. Thus his comment that he has never known a version of MTV that contained music videos ("as far as I am concerned").

2.) Regarding Murphy2112's comment, he as well is relating to the generation made up of the kids of the "MTV Generation" (after all, in the comic, we don't actually have any members of the MTV generation depicted - just one from the following generation).

SirMustapha wrote:[Everything SirMustapha says]

I don't really have a problem with SirMustapha - I mean, if being crotchety is the worst thing s/he ever does, then most of us have far worse bullets on our resumes. What I don't understand, though, is why you're still here? I mean, really? If I assume bad faith: you're not going to bring down XKCD (or even measurably affect traffic). If I assume good faith (that you're trying to be constructive and promote critical thinking over mindless fanboyism): your dissections never really contain anything of any substance that anyone would care to read. And you obviously don't enjoy very much about this comic at all, or the company of any of the denizens of this forum. (And if you're just trying to carve out your own little niche in the vast internet, then there has to be something better than being known as the guy/gal who hates XKCD but posts on the forum all the time anyway, isn't there?)

What's keeping you here?

**Gah, yes, I have a problem with editing. I have a trigger finger for the submit button and for fixing typos: "whoops, there's one." *Fixes it and hits submit*. "Ok goo... crap there's another one". *repeat 5 or 6 times, meanwhile think of a few other things to say and throw them in*. "Aaand, now there are 11 edits..." (There were at least three others right off the bat that the edit counter didn't care to call me out on, apparently).

Uzh wrote:Most of the thread reminds me of this picture:[Pic of cassette and pencil]Georg

Man, I'm only 25, but I caught the tail end of cassettes. I've done that, and it still took me a beat to figure out... My first few purchases where of cassette tapes, but cds rolled around pretty quickly for me. I remember when the kid with the no-skip cd player was the coolest one on the bus.

Lazar wrote:As a Millennial, Iet me take this opportunity to say that I dislike those John Hughes high school movies. Ferris Bueller is a jerk, and The Breakfast Club is a muddle of stereotypes that ends up endorsing the very conformity it pretends to reject.

I feel similarly. Pretty in Pink really pissed me off as well. As a Millennial, I really question the values of the generation that could relate to those movies.

Lazar wrote:As a Millennial, Iet me take this opportunity to say that I dislike those John Hughes high school movies. Ferris Bueller is a jerk, and The Breakfast Club is a muddle of stereotypes that ends up endorsing the very conformity it pretends to reject.

I love you Lazar. John Hughes movies pretty much just relied on old, dusty, and--in my opinion--harmful tropes. Like spreading the meme that every bully comes from a shitty homelife (therefore, his actions are excusable!), every jock is an asshole, with a father that presses too hard, every "nerd" suffers from depression, etc. It tries to portray itself as subverting tropes, when all it does is perpetuate stereotypes already firmly in everyone's head.

As I recall, even at the time, John Hughes movies were taken as an expression of teen culture in the US at that moment; it felt that way to me when I was in my teens in the middle to late 80s.

What's striking to me now as I think of those movies is that, while there's a recurring theme of conflict between spoiled rich kids and working class kids, it's a shallow conflict. Isn't unfair that the mean kids have all the nice stuff? I didn't have the historical context to see this at the time, but what seems striking to me now is that this was just a few years after the radicalization of the late 60s and early 70s; yet there's not a glimmer of the recent history of social conflict -- it never seems to be referenced by any of the characters in John Hughes films. It's as if in the Reagan era, there was enormous pressure to pretend the previous fifteen years hadn't happened.

Uzh wrote:Most of the thread reminds me of this picture:[Pic of cassette and pencil]Georg

Man, I'm only 25, but I caught the tail end of cassettes. I've done that, and it still took me a beat to figure out... My first few purchases where of cassette tapes, but cds rolled around pretty quickly for me. I remember when the kid with the no-skip cd player was the coolest one on the bus.

Too young to have bought a cassette tape, but I remember winding those things up in the car with my dad. And man was I cool with my no-skip CD player...until some rich kid showed up with one that had a built-in FM radio.

violaxcore wrote:

Lazar wrote:As a Millennial, Iet me take this opportunity to say that I dislike those John Hughes high school movies. Ferris Bueller is a jerk, and The Breakfast Club is a muddle of stereotypes that ends up endorsing the very conformity it pretends to reject.

I feel similarly. Pretty in Pink really pissed me off as well. As a Millennial, I really question the values of the generation that could relate to those movies.

I always hated Pretty in Pink, but more for the ending than anything else. I mean, seriously, this amazingly kind-hearted guy (with an amazing hairstyle) who's always been there for you and saved you from this jerk rich kid is in love with you, and you thank him by pointing him towards a *different* girl?

Yoduh wrote:And that's because the generation who raised them are the ones who were originally labeled as the "no attention span" generation when they were themselves growing up in the 80s. So that's to say that either both generations are to blame, or that attention spans are only achieved later in life and the cycle of older generations hating newer generations is never ending.

Well then the fact that nothing groundbreaking can describe our childhoods (90's) other than the name of a decade, proves that the generation above us did nothing groundbreaking enough to define todays teenagers.

Say it aloud. I purposely didn't spell out any of the three spellings, to, too, or two, because that makes it even harder to read. There's nothing mysterious about, its difficult to count homophones in written word but pretty easy in spoken word.

sje46 wrote:Also, a woman outwits a man in a comic strip?! CLEARLY this is sexism. But wait, how do you know that's a woman? Just because the character has long hair? Clearly YOURE a sexist too, for assuming that men can't have long hair!

Ad hominem.Anyway, we do know that that is a woman because while it is possible for men to have long hair, in xkcd, men have always been depicted without hair (with a few exceptions for specific purposes). Similarly, women have always been depicted with long hair or a ponytail (again, with a few specific-purpose exceptions).

legopelle wrote:TL;DR

People getting mature when getting older. Or old will always look down on new.

Was I the only person in the whole damn thread that knew what this meant?People, legopelle isn't saying the comic was too long; he/she was indicating that the rest of the comment should be read as a sort of summary of the comic's meaning.

"It's easy to forget what a sin is in the middle of a battlefield." "Opposite over hypotenuse, dipshit."